Inno occasionally listens. More often than not, they do not. This is not even necessarily a bad thing if their math department wasn't run by preschoolers (yes, that's an exaggeration) and their game designers had an interesting vision - but the times when we tell them a number's out of whack - then it goes live - and lo and behold it was out of whack - and then after the fact they have to make an extreme response to fix the live servers are certainly a case of just flat out not listening. And if they're not listening about that they're certainly not listening at other times too. It usually feels like there's specific things that go on beta they actually want feedback about and listen closely to - and other things (most things) that it's really just a sneak preview set in stone and noone's even reading the thread other than the poor CM who has to read our bile as her job. While most of us have figured out where that border is and have stopped providing feedback on what we perceive to be those issues (i.e. crappy reward or questline on an event = that's fine, just skip it), it still can be frustrating when you come across something that falls in that category that you feel needs feedback (pretty 9 piece winter set that doesn't seem sufficiently attainable - i've actually given up on it on my main server, never planned to try for it on any other in the first place).
Overall though, yes, I am bitter. Increasingly so. Not about one particular thing. As recently as arctic future i tried to be optimistic about changes and figure out how to adapt to and use them but things have been sliding since TE in my eyes where for every addition i truly like (GE, GE4) they make there's 10 i either loathe (harbors, friends tavern, incidents, more OF tech and boring tedious continent map released in a wacky number of "phases", overall balance of OF combat, autobattle, motivation kits and boost items as filler instead of coins/supplies, termination of bronze age pvp, attainability of winter set (less notable as it's just an event but it's recent and on the top of my head)) or turn out to be long-term damaging to the game (the arc, all ages gvg (specifically termination of using treasury goods for gvg in advanced ages), recurring quests that take little to no city footprint to do as much as you want, potentially even orangery and kraken - the problem with powerful effects we like is that it makes it difficult to design further content such that it's fair to people of all GB levels but still interesting for people who've 'succeeded' at the game and have the monster gb levels). Some of the loathed features would be fine if they adequately address important game balance issues but the lack of enjoyable content to go with all the not so enjoyable stuff is painful.
How would I fix it? At this point I haven't a clue. Things may have gone too far to recover the game I enjoyed playing once upon a time. The economy is broken - kraken helped but wasn't as big a fix as i hoped. Level 60+ GBs and the balance issues they cause are a genie that's not going back in the bottle. GvG just got even more mindless and fast. Plundering my neighbors requires goals that i want said plunder for in my eyes - i.e. it can't be the only thing i'm playing the game for. And even GE that used to be a shining light in a very dull game i usually wind up not finishing (why would i want rewards that make OF goods - need a 1 down kit to make any of them have any value) or doing so by negotiation because it's faster than OF combat I'm really quite sick of. And being distraught about my most advanced city makes playing new worlds when the game's still fun feel a little pointless that ultimately what i'm striving for is getting to the point where they'll be no fun either...
Why wouldn't I just quit if i'm this unhappy with the game? I've played it a long while, and you know how these addictions go. One day I probably will and i'll be happier for it - but it seems like such a disappointment to see a game I've put time into for years slowly and surely pull away from being something i actually want to play. Until then, I'll likely continue to post bitter feedback in the vain hope that it has any positive impact steering the game back towards something I actually do want to play.
